About

Gloom of Kilforth: A Fantasy Quest Game, 1-4 heroes, 1-3 hrs

£75,249

pledged of £48,200 goal

1,481

backers

We are now FUNDED!!!

NB: Pledges of £50 or above will get a Print and Play pdf of the game. It will not have the art (which won't be finished by then anyway), just the graphics, but it will be available much earlier than the actual game.

I'm going to keep stretch goals simple and hopefully interesting to gamers like me, namely: proper game content! If/when we hit stretch goals there is a wealth of awesome Gloom of Kilforth expansion content to draw upon which I can introduce early. This will be in the form of extra cards, e.g. more cool hero races and classes to choose from, or more encounters and enemies, etc. which will be included exclusively at no extra cost for you KS backers.

There will also be 3 Kickstarter Exclusive cards included with the game at Hero Level and above!

This. Is. Insane.

Here's the latest sample art from our genius artist Ania - and it's a WORK IN PROGRESS - and one of a couple of hundred reasons why you do not want to miss this game:

NB. Worldwide shipping is already included in the price of your pledge, you will not have to add shipping on top - apologies if the pledge wording is unclear! :)

The land of Kilforth is a perilous domain filled with nefarious monsters, mysterious Strangers and treacherous locations. Dominating its centre lies The Sprawl, a huge city where intrepid Heroes begin their journey to fame and fortune. Throughout the land various factions vie for power over each other, such as the supposedly noble Order of the Rose, and the terrifying Doom Guard. Presiding over the world outside Kilforth is the ever-present Overlord, Masklaw. Over the coming month, a deadly Gloom will descend upon Kilforth, which the Heroes must battle through to prove their worth, defeat an Ancient evil, and save the land from darkness.

Gloom of Kilforth is a card game of high fantasy with a Gothic edge, playable in 1-3 hours, where 1-4 heroes (ages 12 and up), working individually or together, must take their humble adventurers on a journey through a dark world of magic and peril. They will visit strange places and stranger people and overcome powerful enemies in their mission to discover mysterious artefacts and mystical spells. Players follow their hero’s tale from modest beginnings through an epic story to an exciting climactic battle for the fate of the world.

Gloom of Kilforth takes about 50 minutes per player to play and can be played competitively, cooperatively, or fully solo (solo players may use from 1-4 heroes).
The game has been in development for over 8 years and has been play-tested by hundreds of players around the world to reach its current form.

Meet some of our Allies!

Why does Ricky Royal love Gloom of Kilforth?

Why do NVS Gameplays love Gloom of Kilforth?

Why do JoystickzWePlay love Gloom of Kilforth?

Over 200 unique poker sized cards and over 50 unique mini cards each with dazzling art - showcasing hundreds of unique pieces - guide players through their story of their sagas!

210 poker sized 2.5'' x 3.5'' (63.5mm x 89mm) cards:

25 Location cards

4 Ancient cards

4 Race cards

4 Class cards

25 Night cards

12 Saga cards (3 for each saga)

72 Encounter cards (18 in each of 4 types)

64 Reward cards (16 in each of 4 types)

NB: For card sleeves use regular poker/gaming card sleeves.

56 mini-sized 1.75'' x 2.5'' (44.45mm x 63.5mm) cards:

32 Skill cards (8 in each of 4 types)

24 Plot cards

NB: For card sleeves use Mayday Premium Mini Euro 50 Card Sleeves 45mm x 68mm (I checked and they're snug but they do have a little give at the top).

1 x A5 rules booklet (24 pages)

1 x Large Square Game Box

4 x 14mm plastic 6 sided dice

12 x plastic Enemy tokens (3 for each hero)

48 x Cardboard Loot tokens

1 x Wooden First Hero marker

4 x Cardboard standee Hero markers

140 x 10mm wooden cubes:

16 Blue Fate wooden cubes

4 Green Hidden wooden cubes

32 Yellow Gold wooden cubes

32 Black Action Point wooden cubes

32 Red Health Point wooden cubes

24 White Obstacle wooden cubes

Look at all the stuff!!

Without Kickstarter this project will not get made. If/when we do fund there are no current plans to release the game on a commercial level, although expansion content would be possible through the same channel if the demand exists... So vote with your wallets people and order your exclusive copy now! Remember how difficult it was bagging that elusive, expensive copy of Magic Realm?? Don't miss out this time, and let's all get our copies of the ultimate fantasy RPG style adventure game once and for all!

And Cool Reviews:

Drawing inspiration from titles we’ve already seen like combat-heavy tactical dungeon crawls (Descent, D&D, etc.), condensed overland adventures concerned either with combat (Runebound) or random encounters (Talisman), games that stretch into story-telling (Tales of the Arabian Nights), cooperative games against insurmountable odds (Arkham Horror, Defenders of the Realm), and tactical adventure card games (Lord of the Rings: The Card Game), I’ve always wanted to design a game that distils the heroic story telling of an in-depth role playing game down into an amount of time that’s playable in an evening. It’s something that many of us crave as we get older and have kids and relationships and jobs and so on which preclude us from throwing all that time away on months of role-playing games.

So whilst I wanted to include all the high fantasy stuff that many of us love, and which in many ways mostly stems from Tolkien’s work, I also tried to develop new techniques of weaving them together to create story-based gameplay.

The two key drivers for the game are the Saga Chapters and Night card decks. The Sagas represent the tales that the heroes will tell as they progress on their journey to fame and fortune, whilst the Night cards are global events that can affect everyone in the Kingdom.

Stunning, superior fantasy art in a class all by itself, from virtuoso lead artist Ania Kryczkowska!

Concept artist and illustrator Ania graduated from The Academy of Art in 2006. She started hobby drawing at an early age. After a few years working on furniture designs she moved on to the gaming/comics industry. In 2010 she switched from traditional techniques to professional digital painting. Her goal is to acquire as many technical skills as she can whilst exploring art as a more social and public endeavor.

Her artwork sits easily amongst the best in the gaming industry, check out some samples below (my old graphic designs have also now been updated by new lead graphic designer Tom Howard, see below):

New graphic design layout by Lead Designer Tom Howard:

MOAR awesome sample cards with official art and latest design layout!

In Gloom of Kilforth each round (Day) you gain Action points equal to your current HP - you start with 4HP and you can level up to 8HP over the course of the game. Players take turns to play a single action (to reduce downtime). You have these actions to choose from:

1. Move to a new location, draw encounter if one isn’t there

2. Clear an obstacle to gain some loot

3. Search an empty location for an encounter

4. Hide, to avoid (or surprise) enemies and nasty weather effects

5. Confront an encounter to collect that encounter’s keywords – explore a place, speak to (or battle) a stranger, defeat a quest

6. Rest (in a safe, empty location) to regain 1HP

7. Discover a rumour: bring a reward card – item, ally, spell or title - into play (a pick up and deliver type mechanic)

9. Regale – use gold and keywords to complete chapters of your ongoing saga and level up your hero

There are also various free actions you can use on your turn such as fighting, evading or running from enemies, teaming up with other players against encounters, using fate to manipulate your successes, using skills/rewards/loot token effects, automatically overcoming encounters with various powers, using abilities to gain extra actions or effects, and assaulting the endgame boss(es).

Cooperating:heroes can exchange rumours, items, gold, spells and loot with each other whenever they share a location, and in the cooperative game you will need to in order for everyone to complete their Sagas. Heroes can also team up against encounters by combining their attributes for tests, but enemies will fight back against all heroes present with equal ferocity!

I designed a game I wanted to play and feel is missing from the market. I don’t want to roll for movement and see if I have something happen to me, I want to be in charge of what I do, head for where I want to go, have lots of choices, and interact with different kinds of encounters in different ways instead of just slaying bad guys.

This is an intensely involved, thematic game taking about 50 minutes per player, that delivers a full RPG experience in one session!

"Gives me that high-fantasy fix with excellent art and juicy flavor texts, the game's honestly too good to not see an official release" - Dave (Mugen_Infinity8)

"Great solo game, taking the best ideas from top-selling boardgames and mixes them with rich imagination" - Peter Fuchs (Sentence)

"Exceeedingly solid game, a 9+" - Dicky P (Boom04)

"A very fun and very cool game of adventure" - Houserule Jay (jayjonbeach)

"Rich and beautiful" - Lestat Lioncourt

This is the first consideration for most of the games I design. It doesn’t always fit the mechanics or theme (‘1066, Tears to Many Mothers’ comes to mind) but in the case of Gloom of Kilforth it was hugely important for me, not least of all because it would allow me to extensively play-test the game when no one else was available. But also because I was raised on Fighting Fantasy gamebooks and other Interactive Literature, and also board games and even role-playing games which I could play alone after my friends had gone home or when no one was available. Developing a compelling narrative for a single hero was a massive goal for me whilst also scaling out that experience to the multiplayer game, which took some juggling, but which is why this game offers solo, competitive and cooperative play. Don’t just take my word for it, there are plenty of solo session reports from play-testers which indicate just how immersive the single player experience can be:

Super talented pianist and composer Francesca L Hall has developed a piano sound track inspired by the themes of the game, which in turn inspired the designer of the game! Here are some early preview tracks, but all KS backers will be provided with exclusive links to download the full album upon completion.

Back when it was print and play, when cost, packaging, artwork, etc. were not an issue, Gloom of Kilforth was originally designed with nearly 400 unique cards. This card count was subsequently (and rightly) reigned back to a more marketable level on advice from the then publisher, and rigorously play-tested to ensure that playability was unaffected by this reduction in scale. We do not have the scope to include all of that content in this Kickstarter – the price would be too high for a core game. But if we fund, and if there is enough interest, an expansion or two for Gloom of Kilforth (with moar of everything!) could easily become a possibility if supporters so desire.

I’m trying to raise the funds to produce the card game Gloom of Kilforth. The game is complete, the rules are available to download, the artists and printers are all in place ready to go, and if we reach funding there will be nothing stopping us from finally going ahead on this passion project over 8 years in the making!

Per game the costs break down as:

Game components $27.10

Artwork $8

Accounts $0.50

Marketing $1

Kickstarter charges 8% + 0.3 = $6.30

Total $42.90 dollars per game.

$7.10 contingency fund

Shipping worldwide $25

$75 dollar charge

The game will be priced at $50 (or £32.13) per game + $25 (£16.07) shipping worldwide, and is EU and US friendly.

Risks and challenges

I am not a games company, just a guy with a family and a full time job, and a love for great board games who has been encouraged to do this by the hundreds of gamers who have supported me over the years. I will do everything I can to overcome any obstacles and make myself available to all backers and stay on top of updates for the project.

Production of the cards and game boxes will take a couple of months. This will only be possible once all the art for the game has been turned in by the artists, which will take much longer, hopefully no longer than 12 months.

The final hurdle will be overseas shipping. The games will be printed in Hong Kong and shipped from there to distribution centres around the world. From there they will be despatched individually to backers within, for example, Asia, US, EU (my UK copy was shipped from Germany). This is the parent company of Printer Studio if you‘ve ever used them – they can deliver anywhere. For remote countries or countries with special import tax brackets such as Brazil we may have to make alternate shipping payment arrangements. If you have any concerns please message me directly with your location and we’ll work it out.

Any delays which might be caused by shipping will unfortunately be outside my control. But my printer and fulfilment agency have confirmed that customs is already taken into account in the pricing, and if this project funds, you will get your game.